foreach $f (@files) { open FILE, $f or die "Error: $!"; while() { chomp; my ($k,$v)=split("=",$_,2); # Assume dn= comes before other lines $level1=$k, next if $k eq "dn"; unless ($level1) { die "Need to get dn= line first\n"; } push @{$hash{$level1}{$k}}, $v; } close FILE; }